12 November 2013

Oh, the things you'll lean on Twitter

Sometimes I really don't want to lean "the truth". Sometimes I just want to cling to my mistakes and deny reality. This is one of those times.

Much to my horror (and that of the brilliant Mary Robinette Kowal), "fob" appears to have meant WATCH POCKET during the Georgian/Regency period rather than the dangly decoration on the other end of the watch chain.

Fobs play a pretty major roll in my first book (LORD SIN), so I was HORRIFIED!!! It would never in a million years have occurred to me to look up FOB in the OED. This is the kind of thing that happens to everyone one, and since I rail about accuracy all the time, I like to admit my mistakes and try to help others from repeating them.

So here we go, from the OED:

1. A small pocket formerly made in the waistband of the breeches and used for carrying a watch, money, or other valuables.

a1652 R. BromeCourt Beggerii. i. sig. P2v, in Five New Playes (1653) , My Fob has been fubd to day of six pieces.

1667 St. Papers, Dom. CXCI. No. 63. ii, The right side pockett..and the small pockett or fobb.

That is one crowded crying corner! There must be thousands of Georgian and Regency books typically depicting the fops and dandies as being overly burdened with fobs.

How very interesting it is to learn this. But my question then is this - did fops and dandies not wear anything dangling from their watch chains? And if so, what were those danglies called if not fobs?